{"id":140842,"date":"2016-02-29T07:27:31","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T12:27:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=140842"},"modified":"2021-11-08T09:27:05","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T14:27:05","slug":"nazerian-lecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/nazerian-lecture\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking a \u2018look\u2019 at historical hoaxes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MOON DWELLERS: A famous 1830s press hoax involved reports of bat-like people and other fanciful creatures supposedly seen on the moon by an astronomer. (Credit: Library of Congress)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Art historian Joan Saab examines the relationship between seeing and believing.<\/em><\/h3>\n

By Kathleen McGarvey<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw it with my own eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The Nazerian Humanities Lectures<\/h2>\n

Joan Saab was selected to discuss her research on hoaxes as the inaugural presenter in the Hagop and Artemis Nazerian Humanities Lectures at the Humanities Center<\/strong> this spring. Established by University Trustee Ani Gabrellian \u201984 and her husband, Mark Gabrellian \u201979, in tribute to her parents, the lectures will be given annually by a member of the Rochester faculty and will rotate at least once every four years between Rochester and New York City. The series honors the Nazerians\u2019 belief in the benefits of a humanistic education.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It\u2019s an often expressed guarantor of truth. But Joan Saab, an associate professor of art history and visual and cultural studies, suggests that assumptions about seeing and truth require a little more scrutiny.<\/p>\n

During the mid-19th century, a series of grand hoaxes captured the American imagination: the Great Moon Hoax, the Cardiff Giant, and the fantastical creatures of P.\u2009T. Barnum.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m interested in this moment in the 19th century when people are willing to suspend disbelief and see things\u2014and even though they know they\u2019re not true, to believe for that moment that they are,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In the summer of 1835, the New York Sun<\/em> published a series of six articles describing the supposed discovery of life on the moon by famed astronomer Sir John Herschel. The inhabitants included winged people\u2014a combination of humans and bats\u2014unicorns, and other creatures.<\/p>\n

Some people always knew the stories were a hoax, and most knew before the series finished.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it didn\u2019t matter,\u201d Saab says. People were captivated by the story, and the hoax was picked up by papers around the world. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what I think was interesting. It continued to resonate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saab explores the hoaxes in a book that she is writing, Making Sense of What We See.<\/em> It\u2019s one volume in a multivolume series that\u2019s part of what she calls a \u201cnew type of history that engages all of the senses.\u201d<\/p>\n